NCA&T Atmospheric Chemistry Team Participating in the NSF-NOAA-NCAR WINTER Field Project
Undergraduate and graduate atmospheric science programs at NC A&T provide unique opportunities for students to develop career skills through active learning strategies. The most recent example of this is participation in the national research collaboration Wintertime INvestigation of Transport, Emissions, and Reactivity – WINTER.
Emission of man-made pollutants to the atmosphere is a year-round phenomenon. Atmospheric chemical transformations, which play a large role in defining the impact associated with these emissions, have a strong seasonal dependence. In the warmer and more photochemically active summer months, strong oxidant formation leads to the rapid production of multiple secondary pollutants, such as ozone and organic aerosol. In winter, short-lived primary pollutants oxidize more slowly, often driven by multiphase processes, and consequently affect wider geographic areas downwind of source regions. Relatively little is known about budgets of primary pollutants and their ultimate fate during the winter season.
NC A&T faculty and students are contributing tothe NSF funded WINTER ( project that supports collaborative research among university partners, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) that will provide detailed, aircraft-based measurements to address the seasonality of atmospheric pollutant processes. The NSF C-130 aircraft will be based in the mid-Atlantic region over six weeks in January-February 2015. Flights will take place on scales ranging from investigations of local sources (urban, power plant, agricultural) to longer-range transport. Results will critically inform atmospheric chemical models for ozone, aerosols and a variety of other primary and secondary pollutants.
The NCA&Tcollaborative Energy & Environmental Systems (EES) Department and Physics Department Atmospheric Chemistry group (Dr. Solomon Bililign’s group is participating in the WINTER project. Participants include:Dr. Marc Fiddler, research scientist;Jaime Green, EES PhD Title III HBGI Fellowship student; and Steven G. Blanco Garcia,undergraduate physics major. The team will have principal responsibility for the operation of the sulfur dioxide (SO2)instrument and the reduction of the data, leading to the writingof a paper on SO2 measurements during WINTER. Through this involvement, NC A&T is contributing to improved, science-based atmospheric pollution forecasts, prevention strategies, and emission regulations.